


Knife and Fork

by Gilded_Pleasure



Series: Within These Walls [3]
Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Arguments, Complex Interpersonal Shit, Everyone's Worried About Joan, F/M, Fights, Hurt/Comfort, I made myself sad, It Gets Scary, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Joan has PTSD, Ms. Hudson Is Awesome, POV Female Character, PTSD, So much angst, Talking, and so am i, personal history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3903502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilded_Pleasure/pseuds/Gilded_Pleasure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan is tired. She wants to talk... but not About That.<br/>Nothing is fine when something goes wrong, and Joan gets a shock right before the shit <em>really</em> hits the fan.<br/>At least they have Netflix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knife and Fork

\- - -

Joan trudged up the stairs in the lingering twilight and turned her key in the door lock, feeling run down and frustrated when it jammed for just a moment, as it had since Sherlock's most recent round of key cloning experiments.

As if there weren't every conceivable type of lock floating around in the place already, from ten-dollar padlocks you could get at any drugstore, to customized electronic systems with keypads and fingerprint recognition. But he just _had_ to go shoving his arcane cardboard and glue creations into the ones they actually relied on to keep them safe and secure, because of _course_ he did.

He'd done a decent job of cleaning out the shreds and chunks after himself, although not before taking dozens of photos for reference and comparison. He claimed it was necessary to not only analyze the effectiveness of the cloned keys, but the marks and scuffs left on the locks themselves. Including comparisons between evidence of picking methods left on locks that were currently in use, as opposed to ones left lying about for the specific purpose of being picked.

With a wry twist of her lips, she pulled the door shut behind her and set down her purse on the foyer side-table. She hung up her coat and turned around, noticing that the library showed clear signs of Ms. Hudson's attentions. She remembered that it was her usual day at the Brownstone once she thought about it. Moments like those should have bothered her more, but the fact that she was slower to recall minutiae from her daily life didn't seem to be affecting her casework. Even though the most recent cases had started to blend together a bit once they were done; they all seemed to lead up some corporate or political ladder, the perpetrators indistinguishable men in suits.

Listening for a moment, she heard the faraway clink of dishes over the rush of the sink from the kitchen downstairs.

Ms. Hudson was still here, finishing up most likely, since it was nearly eight o'clock. Joan's heart lifted as she twisted her arms up behind her and under her shirt to unhook her bra; she gave a almost obscene sigh as its stricture was released. Rubbing a chafed spot, she balled the abhorrent thing up (she really did need to invest in something without an underwire), and retraced her steps to shove it in her purse, rather than throwing it over the couch in consideration to the work Ms. Hudson had already completed. Pulling her hair up into an elastic from the selfsame purse, she walked briskly down to the kitchen where Clio Hudson could possibly use a cup of tea and maybe even some company while she drank it.

Joan knew she was desirous of both.

\- - -

“So, how's the novella coming along?” Joan asked brightly with real interest, leaning in to enjoy the hot steam from her cup across her tired eyes as she blew gently at the fragrant brew. She liked reading for pleasure, but hadn't done much of it in ages. And the lovely housekeeper's commentary on her creative process was almost as fascinating as the results; Joan always asked about whatever she might be working on.

Ms. Hudson smiled, her gestures and expressions practiced and elegant as she replied, “In floods and droughts, as usual. I can't get enough of writing dialogue, but it's the rest of the actual plot coming together that's giving me trouble.” She took a sip of genmaicha out of her heavy stoneware mug, eyelids fluttering with pleasure.

“I just love my characters so much, I can't bear to hurt them,” she sighed, rolling her eyes at herself as she set the tea down to gesture. “But plots demand conflict and resolution, and coming up with reasons for bad things to happen seems to be my downfall. If it was up to me, and I guess it is, all they'd do is fuck and talk,” she finished with a grin.

Joan grinned and shot back, “ _Fucking and talking_ are the catalysts for nine out of every ten cases I end up consulting on. I'm sure if you think of it like that, you'll come up with all sorts of terrible fates to inflict on your brain-babies,” using Clio's nickname for the fictional people that had come into her life now that she'd removed “professional muse” from her resume, and added “aspiring novelist” in its place.

Ms. Hudson could live on what she made cleaning the houses of various eccentrics, many of whom had had her referred by the two consulting detectives. As large a city as New York provided refuge for such individuals in bulk, and all of her clients considered her tactful and customized organizational skills indispensable. Hudson had regular employment with such luminaries The Nose, whose sensitivities made him extremely particular about products used in his home, as well as a man Joan recalled vaguely from a case who had been writing the same book for thirty years.

Ms. Hudson been selling her historical fiction at a tolerable pace recently, although the slew of rejection early on had been hard on her. Joan didn't know how much money she made writing, but each time she got something published, Joan made a mental note to increase her wages. Clio's commitment to taking the time to find out what inspired _her_ instead of using her time and energy inspiring others had paid off, and she'd started writing her own literature instead of being satisfied at being an autodidactic expert in it. Joan sometimes privately amused herself with the idea that at this rate, they'd end up with a famous novelist as a secret housekeeper.

Over time, Joan had found herself becoming increasingly particular the more she delved into detective work full-time, and began to shudder at the thought of some stranger rummaging around in her spaces. And honestly, she felt less than okay with subjecting any unfamiliar cleaning person to the sort of dangerous materials and problematic information consulting detectives tended to have laying around out of sometimes inconvenient necessity.

That was part of why Joan had kept the woman on to clean up her own apartment when Sherlock had absconded back to London; the rest of it was that she just plain _liked_ the woman. Even if she had to admit that Sherlock's absence had ushered in an era where she came into her own as a detective, she still could hardly have taken clients in an apartment that reflected her personal inclinations regarding tidiness. Cleaning had never been one of Joan's strong suits, nor had cooking-she had every takeout place that delivered to her block recorded carefully in her phone contacts. If cooking was to be done, Sherlock did so when he was in the mood, and when he wasn't, she still just ordered delivery. Speaking of which, she was starting to feel a bit famished.

“I'm gonna heat up some risotto, do you want some? It's only from last night,” she asked the housekeeper, getting up to walk over to the fridge.

“Sure, why not?” came the reply, as Joan rummaged for the plastic container of the previous night's dinner. “By the way, how's your mom doing?”

Joan sighed. “Well, I'm relieved that her neurology tests came back negative, but I want her to try and see a psychologist. I think she might be going through a depressive episode or something.” She got out one of the shallow saucepans and upended the cold-solidified rice into it, turned the burner on low and lidded it to heat slowly. Microwaving would have been more expedient, but the taste was better doing it this way, especially after adding a splash of cooking wine halfway through.

“Is she going to listen, though?” Clio inquired as Joan came back to her chair and sat. “Didn't she say something about how it's the mother gives the daughter advice, not the other way around?”

“I don't know, I haven't said anything to her yet. I did some...well, I got nosy, and I found out she was seeing someone for a while, and it didn't work out,” Joan confided. “It's not like I can just tell her I was spying on her. And I know that's how she would take it.”

Ms. Hudson sighed, giving Joan a regretful smile.

“I guess it goes to show that bad breakups don't get any easier, no matter how much practice you have. You could try putting the screws to her again, however you got her to see the neurologist, if you're really worried,” she prompted, and Joan took the opportunity to regale the woman with her animated retelling of how Sherlock had interfered with her mother's medical treatment, through very questionable means but to great effect. She even found herself laughing as she recalled the use he had put her missing scarf to; just as well, since she hadn't been overly fond of the thing in the first place.

“That really isn't the best way to go about it, but I'm just surprised he got involved at all,” Ms. Hudson marveled. “Are you sure he's not your husband?” she joked, but gave Joan a curious look after a moment. Joan tried to tone down her laughter, it had sounded awfully bitter for a moment. She deflected with, “At least he's not my _mentor_ anymore. Speaking of which, did I tell you I tried to scout out a protege of my own?”

It felt good to just sit and talk, for a change. Across from someone who _wasn't_ a detective or police officer, but still had something in common with. She'd accepted that she had a lifetime of loneliness as the cost of doing what she loved, but it didn't mean she didn't occasionally miss just talking with other women. Her old friends were still important to her, but she found herself increasingly unable to relate to most of their interests and concerns, and Joan really didn't want to tell them anything to do with her work. For their safety, it was better that they remain cut off from Joan's world of murder and mayhem.

But she still found herself yearning towards connections despite the amputation she'd created in her life, the phantom ache directing her to reach out in unexpected ways. Her cravings for compatible female companionship had led her to an aborted attempt to develop a working rapport with Tommy Gregson's daughter, Hannah. Given that Hannah was a second-generation police investigator, Joan had hoped their relationship could result in a possible mentor-protege situation, but the woman's short-sighted ambitions had proved stronger than her desire to develop her abilities, and that had disappointed Joan in the end.

As she got up to finish the risotto's reheating, adding a bit more cheese along with the wine, she found herself telling Clio all about Hannah, and in turn listening to her friend and housekeeper's trials and tribulations, living the single writer's life. They sat down to eat after discussing the cost-benefit analysis of acquiring a cat, and Clio sighed in pleasure at the first bite.

“I should learn how to cook like this,” she muttered, then grimaced slightly. “But then I'd just end up putting this much butter in everything and watching Netflix while I stuffed my face.”

Joan smiled, and replied, “I haven't had much time to look for new shows, I'm almost as out of the loop as my partner lately. Anything good?”

Clio's eyes lit up, and she gushed, “Oh! I've gotten completely addicted to this show, it's about women in prison.” Joan gave her a dubious look, but she continued to explain between bites. “It's not like, some kind of lesbian sexploitation show or anything, not that I wouldn't watch that too,” she waggled her eyebrows salaciously at Joan's snorted laughter, “but no, it's really good after the first few episodes. There's this rich girl, and she used to run drugs for her girlfriend, but now she's...oh, it doesn't matter, no one cares about _Piper_ , it's really about all these women who have their own stories about how they ended up in prison, and there's a transgender character, and she's _great_!” she finished excitedly, gesturing elegantly with her spoon before scraping the last bit of creamy rice out of the shallow bowl. She swallowed with a mildly regretful sigh, before adding brightly, “She does their hair, and she's played by a transgender _actress_ , that's the most important bit.”

Joan smiled, replied, “Maybe I'll find the time to check it out. Do you want any more?” Ms Hudson shook her head, although she glanced over at the stovetop where Joan had left the sizable remainder with another regretful sigh. Clio was watching her weight, especially now that her writing career forced a more sedentary lifestyle; she'd even talked about about investing in a stationary bike and setting up her laptop in the handlebars, somehow. Joan could understand wanting to keep one's discs from herniating by staying in shape, but the tall woman across from her could never look anything but perfectly statuesque at any size.

Joan continued, “Sherlock always makes enough to feed an army, and I'd complain about wasting food if it wasn't so good I somehow manage to finish it all, and if it wasn't his job to clean out the fridge when it's full of old leftovers. Speaking of which, he hasn't even texted me today,” she mentioned, feeling mildly concerned. It was now well past nine pm and she hadn't heard a peep from him, or even seen him before she'd left on one of her own cases that morning.

The past few weeks had been busy if unmemorable, and she was secretly grateful to be spared the empty time for self-reflection that had catalyzed a few... _encounters_ with Sherlock that they would likely have to discuss. Eventually. They hadn't been passing like ghost ships in the night or anything like that, but his inherently introverted nature worked to her advantage, since she didn't want to think about it, much less discuss what it meant with him. What it _could_ mean. A wave of exhaustion hit her at the idea of it; she didn't want to think about _anything_ , anymore.

It had been easy after Sherlock had fallen asleep that last morning to fall back into their comfortable domestic habits, and never mind the fact that she'd found herself taking cases she'd have usually farmed out to a few able PI's she knew; instead opting to fill her days with tailing exes, online research, and paperwork done in the basement office. She wasn't _avoiding_ anything; she was accustomed to taking paying cases that failed to pique Sherlock's interest, and they needed the money for things like paying Ms Hudson.

Joan had pulled her phone out of her capacious skirt pocket, and frowned at its lack of notifications as she double checked the time. She looked up at her companion, who'd been drifting off into one of her reveries that usually meant she was thinking about her brain-babies again.

“Did Sherlock give you your check before he left today? Did you see him at all?” she asked, the beginnings of worry creasing her brow.

Ms. Hudson started a bit, and said half-absently, “Oh, he didn't go out.”

“What do you mean?” Joan asked in consternation.

Clio, brought round by her tone, rolled her eyes in amusement as she replied richly, “He said he was expecting _company_ today.”

Expecting....

Oh.

Oh, _god_.

Joan felt an icy mask of horrified chagrin fall over her face as her head turned slowly of its own accord to stare at the closed french doors to Sherlock's bedroom, which directly abutted the kitchen. Where she'd been chatting and eating a lovely dinner with Ms Hudson, and all the while Sherlock had been in there with someone, and she hadn't...

“Oh! No, they're not in _there_ ,” Clio clarified hurriedly, “God, I wouldn't want to listen to that while I'm trying to get dried-up tomato sauce out of the oven knobs,” she laughed. Joan's hand was halfway over her mouth when she considered the additional implications of that particular revelation.

“If they're not in there...” she looked up slowly, increasingly awful possibilities dawning on her. “He wouldn't dare use _my_ -” she started in shock.

“As far as I know, they're on the roof,” Ms. Hudson shrugged.

“On the roof,” she echoed weakly, putting her elbow on the table to lean her forehead against her hand. “And no one's called the police yet?”

Clio just raised an eyebrow and a shoulder.

“Only in New York,” Joan shuddered.

“I'm a little amazed anything he does surprises you,” the blonde woman sighed, sounding a little confused. “You've been living with him for years, you know how he is and what he gets up to. Although....I'd say he's actually calmed down, now that he's older. He doesn't seem like the type, but he never really did, not even back when I first met him. Bit of a nerd, despite the tattoos. Bookish, you know, like me,” she smiled, with a gesture towards her large, black-framed glasses that did nothing but enhance her classical beauty before continuing.

“But I guess you didn't know him before...well. The drugs.”

Joan's hand was rubbing her mouth again, and she pulled it down in what she hoped was a casual motion. The memories of her first days with Sherlock cut at her sharply; the outrageously false declaration of love at first sight, the hostile, erratic, and sometimes violent behavior she'd seen from him then. The attraction she'd felt hadn't been sexual, and the context of the companion-client relationship would have put a damper on anything like that. And yet, she couldn't help herself from trying to find out more about him, and her first real attempts at investigation had been into Sherlock's past.

“No, I didn't meet him until he got out of rehab. I forget sometimes that you knew him when he was still consulting with Scotland Yard,” Joan mused quietly, disturbed at her own conflicted emotions. She knew him a lot better than she used to (she viciously suppressed a blush at that thought), but there always seemed to be so much more she didn't know.

Joan tilted her head and asked casually, “How did you two meet, anyway? He never said.”

Her friend waved her hand, looked down and began, “I mean, I'd already left for Paris before he even... before any of that started. I had my own problems, back in London, and he looked me up after someone at Cambridge gave him one of my monographs on the problems of geography in Heliodorus's _Æthiopica_.” She smiled, fiddling with her napkin more gracefully than Joan would have thought was possible for such a seemingly careless gesture.

“He was impressed by the fact that I wasn't even a professional Classicist. And back then...I just felt so _new_. Trying to figure out how to be, what to do with myself. I didn't...I wasn't confident, I was barely leaving the house, just filling up the hours with my books when I wasn't at work.”

Her unfocussed gaze lifted to the darkened window as she reminisced.

“He didn't look at me like other people did. Everyone I knew then always seemed like they were _trying_ to see something else, or what they saw was... they didn't see _me_. But the case really did take forever, that first one; it was like he didn't even really _know_ what he needed me to find, much less how to explain it to me. He was even worse at explaining himself back then; teaching you made him a lot better with that, I think.” She gave herself a small, private smile before continuing. “But whether or not he was looking, he still saw everything, you know how he does, and when he _saw me_ , it was just...incredibly validating,” she sighed.

Words dropped from Joan's mouth like stones.

“You slept together.”

Ms. Hudson's dreamy eyes fell on Joan with surprise when she spoke, then slowly turned hurt. Started to show the beginnings of anger.

Joan gobbled out, “Oh! Oh, god, no....I'm not surprised by _that_ , it's just, I'm just surprised I hadn't figured it out already,” relieved to realize it was at least partially true as she spoke. No matter that she felt as though she'd just been hit in the back of the head with a board, the last thing she wanted was to cause the incredible woman across from her more hurt than the undue share she'd already been dealt in her life.

“I just....it makes me feel like I'm slipping. I mean, as a _detective_ ,” Joan prevaricated with as much sincere regret and humbleness in her voice as possible. “I've seen you two around each other a hundred times, and I never even picked up on it. Sherlock always says that I see these sort of things, the kind of things that he misses sometimes,” she finished breathily. And then, unaccountably, blushed.

Her friend seem a little confused, but mollified by her explanation.

“Well, it's not as if it was some kind of grand affair; even I forget that it happened, most of the time. We're both...really different now, and it wasn't like I was in _love_ ,” she laughed with a wave of her hand. “The way those things usually end for me, we'd hardly still be on speaking terms now. And it's not as if he's exactly relationship material,” she said a bit wryly, rolling her eyes up toward the ceiling pointedly.

“Not as if that ever stopped me, but he hardly needs _inspiration_ to do what he does. That kind of focus is just built into his genes, somehow, and the way he has of keeping people at arm's length. Or the way he used to; sometimes it just catches me off guard, how much he's changed. It might sound weird, but I thought he was going to ask me to move in with him a while back, after Kitty left, you know. I considered it for half a second, but I prefer being _paid_ to clean this place.” She smiled to soften the implied criticism.

“I was relieved when he didn't ask, just because for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm really enjoying my own company. Being by myself used to feel like a chore, or a penance. I always ended up feeling universally unwanted when I was alone. But now, especially with the writing, it feels like I'm my own best friend.” She smiled with the simple joy and contentment the realization had brought her, and Joan shoved her inexplicable discomfort down, feeling confused and guilty. Being alone wasn't a _penance_ , she knew that. She should be feeling happy for Clio, not...resentful. She tried to banish the sharp stab of envy in her gut as she tried to smile back at her friend.

Abruptly, they both heard a thump from upstairs, and murmured voices accompanied by footsteps that got louder as they descended (thankfully) towards the foyer, rather than continuing down to the kitchen.

She smiled warmly at Joan, and indicated the noises above with a cooly delicate gesture, “Besides, I could never put up with him. I'll leave that to you.”

Joan hoped her return smile didn't look as sickly as she felt. They both listened to Sherlock and an unknown woman (she glanced a question at Ms. Hudson, who shook her head in the negative) murmur goodbyes to each other, the door open and shut, and a lone pair of footsteps reascend the stairs. They giggled a bit as they heard the pipes groan, indicating that the water had started in the shower. Joan glanced at her phone again and started when she saw how late it had gotten.

“I'm so sorry,” Joan gushed, “I've kept you here half the night, after you worked all day. Do you want to just stay over? You can use Sherlock's room, it's not like he ever uses it for anything like sleeping,” she finished a bit flatly.

“No, that's okay, I want to get back to my own bed. And my own toothbrush, those are never safe around here.”

Joan pursed her lips, before replying “Well, I'm at least going to walk you out.”

Ms. Hudson gathered up her things, and they headed up to the front door together now that the coast was clear. She never allowed Ms. Hudson to wait out here at night by herself, it just wasn't safe. Joan fondled the collapsible singlestick in the pocket of the coat she'd donned as they'd left the brownstone. As they approached the curb to wait for a cab to hail, Joan took her empty hand out of her pocket and slapped her own pate with a groan.

“I forgot to follow up, Sherlock _did_ pay you, right?”

The taller woman turned toward her and peered into her face with concern.

“Yes, he did, but it wouldn't have been life and death if you'd forgotten; you could have just mailed it. I'm not living as hand-to-mouth as I used to.”

She looked almost grave as she asked gently, “Joan, are you okay?”

Joan saw a cab and stepped out to hail it, her heart turning to stone. One of the reasons she'd looked forward to an evening in Ms Hudson's company was that she didn't _pry_. Even after Sherlock had left, she'd never asked why, or what had happened. But now, she continued her indecisive inquiry, even as the cab pulled up and idled.

“I know you... you never saw anyone about the whole thing that happened last year, when you were...missing. For a while,” she rushed out. “Although you...seemed okay, then.”

_But you're not anymore_ , was the unspoken implication.

Joan stepped off the curb and opened the door of the cab, and Clio took the hint and came up to stand beside it, but didn't get in. Joan stared down at her hands and spoke tightly.

“I _was_ okay.”

She looked up into the taller woman's face. She was backlit by the streetlight, so Joan stepped back onto the curb. Seeing the sincere concern directed at her, the words came up in her throat unwilling; felt as if they were torn from her as she spoke.

“That was different,” she whispered.

“Nothing that happened _to me,_ ” she struggled out, “....was _my fault_.”

Then, she turned on her heel and stalked back up to the brownstone; heard the door to the cab shut and the idling engine turn live as it drove away.

Joan couldn't bear the look of pity she'd seen on her friend's face.

She didn't deserve it.

\- - -

Joan hadn't looked up from her desktop computer in the office when Sherlock had breezed past her in a towel on his way back to his bedroom. She knew his bouncy gait was perfectly typical of his locomotion around the brownstone, but to her, tonight, it seemed unwarrantedly exuberant. In the quiet calm, she could hear his bedroom doors open and shut clearly; heard them again several minutes later followed by the distinct noises of the frying pan coming out of the cupboard and set on the stovetop. And then, predictably, his overly vigorous and repetitive whisking. He was making his _eggs_ again. Of course, since she'd dumped out the remainder of the congealing risotto into the trash when she'd gotten back inside, breathing heavily.

She tried to push it out of her mind and concentrate on what she was doing. She was checking several sets of financial records for discrepancies, trying to make the pieces fit together and failing. Each time she checked the rows and columns of numbers, they seemed to add up the way that they were supposed to, but she knew there had to be some kind of problem. The man who'd hired her to check it was convinced that money was disappearing somewhere along the line, and despite this being one of the cases she would usually farm out to one of her P.I.s (or even the forensic accountant they'd added to their dossier of irregulars), she'd taken the case and the business owner's money to slog through it herself.

Just as she thought she'd narrowed it down to about 70 rows, she heard the hiss as the eggs hit the hot pan and accidentally clicked her mouse with a start, un-highlighting the rows she'd just carefully selected for analysis. She gave a growl of pique and tried to find her place again, instead becoming distracted by her own reflection staring at the screen in increasing frustration. The beginning of a tension headache was creeping into her neck and shoulder as she finally heard Sherlock coming up towards the study.

She felt his presence behind her and saw his reflection in one of her additional monitors, currently dark. A fork with a bit of egg skewered on it appeared abruptly over her shoulder and indicated one of the cells on the screen in front of her.

“There,” Sherlock mumbled through a full mouth. He was wearing one of his ratty old t-shirts, which she supposed made sense considering the time of night. No use in buttoning up when there were no cases, and no...company.

“What's _there?_ ” she asked flatly.

She heard him swallow before replying, “The discrepancy. Enter that number into the spreadsheet you had up when I came through earlier, and you'll find several thousand dollars suddenly unaccounted for. Check it against the employee login times and you'll discover your embezzler, along with the small amounts siphoned off in the records for other transactions. I don't know why you bother with tripe like this,” he remarked, before she heard him start chewing again. “Forensic accountants need to eat too,” he mumbled through a full mouth.

She sat there without turning around and tried counting to ten.

He swallowed again, and stated matter-of-factly, “You're upset.”

“You know how much I hate it when you waltz in and just solve something I've been staring at for at least forty five minutes.”

“Mmmm,” he grunted. The one that always meant he wasn't done talking, not by a long shot.

And.... there it was, the deep breath before the monologue.

“Actually, it's something you'd have seen in less than half that time if you hadn't already been upset when I came through earlier. You're as tense as a bowstring, and I'd wager you're working yourself up to a rather spectacular headache,” he explained to his plate of eggs, the fork continuing to illustrate his observations. His reflection met her eyes for a moment as she continued to say nothing, then darted back down to the plate.

“I'd have made you eggs as well, but you finished dining yourself little more than an hour ago,” he said blandly. “I paid Ms. Hudson earlier today, but you spoke with her so I assume you have been informed of that fact already.”

She hated it when he started fishing, especially when he was somewhat justified. It made the way he missed something so obvious exponentially more annoying, the clarity of his casual observations making it seem almost like he was doing it on purpose.

She turned around, meaning to say something dismissive and reassuring, but instead she stopped short and blurted, “Since when do you even _own_ sweatpants?”

He blinked, then looked down at his legs clad in grey cotton and replied with raised eyebrows, “I haven't a clue; I haven't seen them since Hemdale. I wore nothing but during my time there. Once I left its rehabilitative bosom, I assumed I'd never be able to stomach continuing the habit because of the association. I'd binned them all, or so I thought, but I found these among my casual shirts and thought I'd don them on a lark,” he said bemusedly. “It's rather like not wearing trousers at all, which I suppose would have had its appeal at the time,” he finished crisply, looking back at his plate and stabbing up another round of egg curds. “You're not upset about _sweat_ _pants_ ,” he informed the doomed mouthful before shoving it into his open maw pointedly and chewing at her.

She pressed her lips together and tried not to sound angry as she pressed her fingers into the arms of the office chair. “On the _roof_ , Sherlock? I've bailed you out before, but I'm not so sure I'd want to show up to the station and explain to people I _work_ with that I needed to pick up my roommate, you know, the one who got arrested for engaging in public indecency on the rooftop of our _home_ ,” she said in as measured a tone as she could manage. Which was apparently not very.

He looked at her with raised eyebrows creasing his forehead. “Is that all?” he tonelessly replied.

“We were in a tent,” he informed her, with exaggerated slowness. “Elaine enjoys the great outdoors, occasionally to a fault. We arrived at something of a compromise.”

She sighed slowly.

“Well, you could have been more considerate,” she remarked snappishly, starting to turn back to her work.

“I fail to see how I could have been _more_ considerate,” he shot back, “once you take into account that my activities could not even be said to have taken place under the same roof as yourself, but rather, on _top_ of it.” He waggled his fork at the ceiling.

She spread her hand at him, grimacing, then sighed, “I'm trying to work, Sherlock.”

He didn't move, instead continuing to stand there stiffly with his now-empty plate with both hands, staring down at her.

“The case, tedious as it may be, is _solved_ ,” he said gently but insistently. “You have decided to interrupt your aspirations to become a fungus in the lightless depths of your basement office, and opted instead to willingly occupy our _shared_ office for the performance of a tedious and thankless task, despite the obvious fact that you are quite tired.” He paused before continuing, “Having managed less than even your current accustomed amount of sleep last night.”

He pursed his lips a moment, then muttered with a frown, “I have been thoroughly if needlessly chastised, and yet your white-knuckled grip demonstrates that you positively simmer under your lid with additional thoughts that remain unexpressed. As your _friend_ ,” he emphasized with a tilt of his head, “I observe that you are not entirely well and I would like to inquire further, since despite the fact that you appear somewhat hostile to my presence, you also seem to have gone to some lengths to seek it out.”

She sighed shakily, and began, “I know you wanted to talk about...what happened, but a week or two isn't really enough time to-”

“A month,” he interrupted, with a slight edge.

“What?”

His eyes sparked a bit as he replied, “This Tuesday marked precisely _one month_ since the sexual encounters between us that, despite your enthusiastic participation in at the time, now seem to be causing...” he made a circular gesture with his hand for a moment, pausing, then finished, “...difficulties,” with a sigh. He took a step or two back towards his desk and set the plate on it with a suspicious rattle.

“Difficulties exacerbated by your avoidance of the issue.”

Joan took a bit of umbrage at that and shot back, “Since when are you the expert in human interaction? You've had a lot to say about the nature of friendship lately, for someone who claimed he didn't _have_ friends when I first met him,” she said, getting to her feet and starting to walk past him toward the hallway. “And if I wanted advice on my interpersonal relationships, I'd get a therapist,” she muttered under her breath as she resigned herself to another night of tossing and turning.

“Perhaps you should.”

She froze at Sherlock's voice, spine turning to ice as she turned to face him. He looked at the floor in front of her with raised eyebrows creasing his forehead. She said nothing for several long moments as he rocked on his heels, undaunted by her glare. But she'd had it with being the one who always blinked first.

He sighed under her recriminating eyes and strained breaths, and seemed to gather himself up before speaking again.

“I've sacked Alfredo.”

“What?” she replied to the apparent non sequitur.

He bounced as he explained, “As my sponsor. He unexpectedly encountered some _personal_ difficulties, and when I attempted to broach the topic with him, he rather vociferously invoked the prescribed context of our relationship as sponsor and _sponsee_ to put me off.”

She opened her mouth and took a deep breath, but he made a placating gesture and clarified, “He is assisting me with the acquisition of new sponsor, but the relevant conclusion I came to after much deliberation,” he gave her a sidelong and evaluative glance as he waved his hand furtively in front of his chest, “is that every relationship is a dynamic, changeable thing. It grows, it _strains_ , it can appear to take on a life of its own without the participant's foreknowledge or assent. The boundaries it was meant to reside within can no longer contain it, or perhaps even accurately describe it, and unless this process is acknowledged, and the relationship revisited...” he licked his lips as he trailed off. She watched his eyes dart back and forth a moment before he continued.

“Alfredo and I had, over the course of our association, become _friends_ beyond the process of maintaining my sobriety. A relationship of _mutual_ benefit, rather than a designated individual who helps, the other receiving the support. The process of severing old ties in order to form new ones was difficult, but necessary, and ultimately quite rewarding,” he finished, finally looking at her to gauge her response to this startling summation of events and his remarkably astute assessment of them.

Joan reeled at being subjected to a torrent of insight she'd have commanded herself years ago. He was trying to _reason_ with her, and the reversal of their roles was maddening. What had changed between them that he felt so superior? Suddenly, a hot worm of fury curled through her chest, slimy with shame.

“Did you go to bed with _him_ , too?” she said in a small, cold voice.

He actually took a step back, face blank with surprise, until he was leaning a hip against his desk.

“I did not,” he replied uneasily but firmly, gone unusually still. “Why-”

She cut him off, lightly slapping her shaking hands against her thighs as she gave a bitter laugh. “How am I supposed to know what you even mean by the word _friend_ anymore?” He began to turn away from her, leaning a fisted hand stiffly against the cluttered desktop. “Alfredo's your friend now, _I'm_ your friend, and you're the friendship expert. And of course there's the _friends_ that handcuff you to ladders, the friends who want your _babies_ , the friends you call “mistress” when you answer the phone, the _friends_ you take up on our roof to-”

She jumped as the plate Sherlock had been eating from earlier shattered on the floor. As she stared sickly at his back as he visibly shuddered towards self-control, she wondered dimly at how long it had been since she'd seen him lose it. He turned back to her, eyes cold.

“I fail to recall any commitment on _my_ part to cut myself off from all aspects of human contact. _You_ , however, appear not only to have dedicated yourself to isolation, but insist that I, somehow, must _also_ conform to that standard,” he rasped. “Watching you pretend to be...how you believe _me_ to be is intolerable.”

He slowly unclenched his hand and brought it up to his chest to rapidly indicate them both by turns, fingers flicking as he tilted his head and weighed her with his eyes. “Despite your...accusations, you may have to come to terms with the fact that _my_ problems, such as they are...”

His nostrils flared as the edge came back into his voice, “and such as they are _not,_ currently, fail to achieve sufficient volume to _obscure your own_ , much as you might _prefer_ them to,” he intoned with angry finality.

It hit like a punch to the gut. Her voice came out high-pitched and breathless.

“You can't deny that you... you're _promiscuous._ ” She waved a hand at him clumsily, standing there unsteady, unshaven, and looking every inch the addict in sweatpants as she steadied her voice. He turned away, pacing as he wiped an arm across his forehead. She continued, “Addictive behavior expresses itself in a lot of different ways, and sometimes I wonder if there's anyone left that we both know that you haven't-”

He rounded on her, eyes blazing with outrage and fingers frozen in the act of scrubbing across his lips before he tore them away and roared, “Speaks the woman who engaged in sexual congress with _my pig of a brother_!”

She made an involuntary click in her throat as her head lolled back, and her voice sounded far away to her when she spoke.

“Well, you must be feeling pretty smug, since you were apparently right about what you said back then. Latent _sexual_ feelings for you, a byproduct of the intimacy required for our partnership,” she scoffed, with a bitter imitation of a laugh. “Glad you resolved that conflict for me, because that's what you do, right? Like some kind of superhero that takes off his cape to make a girl feel better about herself when she hits a rough patch, like me, or... or Ms. Hudson. I guess now we both know too much about that woman's _love life_.”

He just stared at her, neck craned and eyes narrowed in confusion and disbelief. Then he jerked a shoulder and blurted, “You're a _detective_ , Watson; you're telling me you didn't know?”

The criticism burned like acid, and so did the words pouring out of her. “I don't know _what_ I am anymore, so I have to ask questions like an _ordinary person_. When exactly was it?” An expression was creeping over his face that she'd never seen directed at her before. “Was it before, or after she-”

With a gut-wrenching wave of nausea, she clamped a hand over her mouth in a desperate attempt to stop the poison that was coming out of it. Disgust and disappointment were written clearly on Sherlock's face as he replied coldly, “Watson, that was unworthy of you,” before the tears in her eyes blurred it mercifully away, and she ran.

\- - -

A small part of Joan that crouched and cataloged events from somewhere deep in her head wryly observed that a steaming shower was possibly the worst place she'd ever vomited, and yet, she continued to heave between raw-throated, uncontrollable sobs. It didn't taste nearly as bad as the memory of the vitriolic words she'd spewed between herself and Sherlock, the ones that had seemed to lash out from the core of her to attack not only him, but everyone she cared about.

Her friends from medical school had always told her that doctors make the worst patients, and she'd laughed in their faces, pointed out how well she took care of herself. She got physicals and stayed hydrated, had her pap smear done like clockwork, read the latest on preventative care, and pointed out self-righteously that unlike her stressed and sleepless brethren in medical school and beyond, she'd never taken up a smoking habit, cigarettes or marijuana.

And she'd never had an addiction, never relied on a _chemical_ to maintain her peace of mind. Alcohol had never held much appeal for her either, which had come rather in handy during her time spent addict-sitting, as Sherlock had coined it, and as a result Joan knew she looked at least ten years younger than her actual age. But in the last six months, she'd woken up to a new grey hair when and if she bothered to check each morning; not that it mattered when she had it colored every month regardless.

Joan kept her feet well away from the last of the vomit as it made its way down the drain; she made a mental note to pour some drain cleaner down it the next day to ensure she hadn't overly stressed the brownstone's ancient plumbing with her misuse of it. She shuddered in disgust and debasement. If she hadn't already felt completely wrung out, she might have made herself angry recalling the time Sherlock had told her that despite her guilt, she couldn't relate to a profound sense of _shame_.

Such pedestals he put her on; no wonder he'd been so disappointed at her failure to meet his new standards of emotional reciprocity. Sympathy he'd shown countless times; sincere compassion for victims and innocents he had an almost limitless amount of. But his capacity for empathetic reasoning, and his ability to recognize the burning shame that mirrored his own beneath her vitriol... His perception of _her_ internal state would always be filtered through his cognitive loopholes, and a lifetime of being almost fatally misunderstood.

Joan let the hot water pummel her sore face in the hope of cauterizing the last of her tears away, as she chastised herself again for falling into the comforting mental exercise of analyzing Sherlock's shortcomings. If they could even be called that anymore. He didn't need _healing_ ; or at least, he was already going through the long and arduous process of healing himself and accepting what others had to offer toward that goal. It might take the rest of his natural lifespan to complete, if ever. But she was in need of something more immediate, a triage of the mind and soul. A soul that had stood as horrified, mute witness to her own increasingly awful behavior. She had fallen into a hole she would need at minimum, a hand up to begin climbing out of.

She turned off the taps with defeated resignation, and stepped out of the deep tub that had been laved many times recently in the varied effluvia of her fluctuating emotional states. She toweled off and considered where Sherlock had fled to after her...well, her _shitshow_ , if she was committed to being honest with herself now. A part of her hoped that he'd gone up to the roof again to be with the bees; their constant dull roar seemed to sink into his bones, replacing the integral and electric energy he hummed with when it had been depleted by his own mentally and emotionally taxing efforts to continue existing. She was more than sure that she had appropriated a great deal of that necessary effort towards herself in the course of the evening's events.

Those hopes were dashed when she opened the bathroom door and looked up into Sherlock's whitely haunted visage; it became impossibly paler when a wave of steam redolent of perfumes and the bite of her expelled stomach acid roiled out of the bathroom past her towel-wrapped figure. The already-abused capillaries in her face ached, swelling anew with the flush of embarrassment that heated it.

“I'll take care of it tomorrow,” she said in a small voice, unable to meet his eyes but moving around him to walk towards her bedroom. She rummaged in a drawer to find her loosest pajama set, noticed he'd come to stand stiffly in her doorway as she came up after choosing an oversized tunic nightgown instead. She just stared at him until he turned his back abruptly, then dropped her towel and pulled it over her head, not bothering to untuck her wet hair from where the cloth pressed it clammily against her neck. She clambered awkwardly over her bed, then glanced at Sherlock, who'd turned back around, as she wiggled herself in under her plush white comforter.

She felt hollow and light-headed, and strangely vulnerable as she half-lay, half-sat there under his unacknowledged study. She reached out to her nightstand to retrieve her smaller laptop, dragged it over her blanketed thighs and opened it to be slightly dazzled by the glare of its screen. With a pang of remorse, she opened up her Netflix account and performed a quick search for the show that Ms. Hudson had lit up when describing to her earlier in the evening. Her finger hovered over the trackpad to click the “play” icon on the first episode, when she paused and addressed Sherlock without looking at him.

“You can watch a show _with_ me, instead of watching _me_ watch a show from the doorway,” she said in a hoarse voice. She cleared her throat reflexively, swallowed.

He hesitated, then turned away before stuttering back with, “I'll return presently,” and heading determinedly down the stairs. She sighed, and hit the play button regardless. He remained indifferent to most modern media, with several glaring and amusing exceptions, and wouldn't much care if he missed the premise. The opening sequence helped her shove thoughts out of her mind as its sounds covered whatever Sherlock was up to, but she had no doubt that he would return as he said. He always did what he said he would do, whatever form that ended up taking.

His reappearance in her peripheral vision prompted her to turn her head and peer at him, the afterimage from the screen dancing in front of her eyes. A large bowl filled with what appeared to be vegetables was tucked under one arm, and the other arched out to carefully cradle Clyde, who she assumed he'd retrieved from the comforts of his terrarium during his excursion. As he continued to stand like an indecisive sentinel unwilling to breach her bedroom, she inclined her head very obviously at the space in the bed beside her.

He abruptly came into motion without jostling the tortoise he transported towards her, before setting down what he carried carefully on the duvet. He settled himself with crossed and extended legs on her bed with his former burdens between them, hands folded in his lap. She eyeballed Clyde a moment, and remarked dolefully, “I don't want to sleep in turtle pee tonight,” more out of habit than real concern.

In lieu of a verbal defense, Sherlock merely lifted an arm to reach for the back of his neck, and pulled his old, ratty t-shirt off over his head with a smooth economy of motion. He spread it out carefully between them like a soft cotton tarp, and set the relatively sedentary tortoise on its light blue surface before settling back into his former position. Clyde's meanderings on small, clawed feet reminded her of Andrew's lizard for a moment, with an accompanying rush of bitterness, pain and regret. If only he'd never lost it and gone wandering to discover its whereabouts. If only he'd never knocked on her door and asked for help finding it, or she'd left sooner that day. If only she'd been the kind of person who could have at least loved him before he died.

_Because of you_ , her brain whispered viciously.

Joan forced the intrusive thoughts away as much as she could, passively absorbing the moving lights and sounds from her laptop, and watched Sherlock's hands reaching into the bowl to retrieve various vegetal items and set them in front of Clyde. The tortoise's neck slowly stretched forward so he could snap and chomp at the proffered tidbits. She noticed a smaller container in the bowl, and asked quietly, “What's that for?”

In reply, he handed it to her and she recognized a tub of store-bought hummus that she'd taken to populating the fridge with for her post-workout snacks. She sighed and swallowed, thinking of the lemony tartness on her raw throat, extending her arm over her body to set it on the nightstand.

“What do you think of it so far?” she asked instead, grateful that the glow of the screen currently negated any reflective tendencies it would have when it went dark.

“Premature plot device using the social taboos around menstruation for shock value, protagonist characterized in a manner than appears designed to promote antipathy towards her,” he remarked dryly. “What's not to love?” He paused, his large, gelid eyes glowing in the light from the screen as he glanced at her. “You should have something to eat,” he urged quietly.

She protested, “Not from the bowl you've been rummaging around in with your turtle-fingers.”

“A healthy reptile harbors fewer salmonella bacteria on its surface than your own toothbrush, Watson,” he countered, “as you are well aware. Your gastrointestinal tract is quite safe. Unless of course you've adopted the habit of licking the poor _tortoise's_ cloaca on the sly, in which case a bout of salmonella should be the least of your concerns. As well as your just desserts,” he finished, which tricked a half-hearted giggle out of her.

She neither ate nor replied, however, as she allowed the program to play the next episode automatically. She took the opportunity to enable the subtitles, and turned down the volume slightly as the opening credits played. She still felt emotionally raw, but she was touched by his apparent willingness to get her through this night, as well. She just wished that he could see that she wasn't in any state to talk about changing relationships, much less be in one. She didn't know. She didn't even seem to know herself anymore.

And that was the problem.

“I'll go,” she said with simple finality.

To her surprise, his hand snaked across the bed to grasp her forearm firmly and wordlessly.

_Oh._

Her heart ached as she resisted the impulse to look over at him; she could grant him that small privacy, at least.

“I'll see somebody, I mean,” she clarified. “About...everything.”

His hand was hot and dry, and it hovered a moment as its grip loosened, then firmed to maintain physical contact with her, much to her surprise.

“You've been awfully British about it all,” he replied unsteadily.

“Except I'm _not_ ,” she said, the ghost of earlier heat coming into her voice at that. “So you should stop measuring me against however you think of _yourself_ , and realize I'm coming from a different place than you are. On a _lot_ of things. And I'm not like _Kitty_ , either,” she finished with finality.

“You're not,” he agreed mildly. “Her trauma was... clearly defined, in a way that she fought against being defined _by_. Your struggle has an entirely different character to it, as unique to you as you are to the world. A certain...complexity, which I have not ameliorated by adding my own complications.”

She sighed heavily, and would have felt slightly guilty if he hadn't been so...Sherlock. Nonetheless, she still found herself asking, “Do you regret it? The sex, I mean,” she added after a moment, watching Clyde bite into a chunk of carrot.

He was quiet for several long moments before replying. With anyone else, Joan would have felt unnerved by the prolonged silence, but Sherlock answered questions in his own time and his own way. As he began to speak, the hand on her arm rubbed back and forth a moment, squeezing it briefly before retuning to its state as a calming anchor in their turbulent words.

“During my latter days in London, I became aware that Kitty's admiration for my methods and the empowerment she felt at learning them was not untinged with a more personal infatuation, however misplaced. I was not blind to her overtures, but I can say to you now that I found them repellent, not for my sake,” he rushed, “but because they so clearly were born a place of illness, and a desire for control over her experiences, rather than a real attraction or even desire. Her advances were rebuffed; if not cruelly, then firmly and without doubts left to fester later.” He sighed painfully.

“I am no grand mechanic, drawn only to that which is broken in order to test my skills at repairing them. In fact, such runs counter to my own nature as a broken thing, as you have an overwhelming familiarity with. Rather, I am drawn to that which is like myself, if only in the sense that it too is inherently _unlike_ anything else. That similarity calls across boundaries. And I trust you will believe me when I say that _I know the difference_ , and I experience none of the regrets you might have fantasized I had been harboring in my breast.”

She sat quietly for a while, absorbing his monologue slowly as she absently read the words across the bottom of the screen along with the quiet murmurs of dialogue and music from her laptop. After a time, he removed his hand from her forearm without comment to pet Clyde beneath the chin, causing the tortoise to stretch his neck in trust at the familiar caress.

“Any regrets on your part?” he asked carefully.

“No,” she replied simply.

“I hadn't imagined so. But it seemed politic to ask you in return.”

“I suppose this means you aren't going to take my advice and see anyone yourself, sort any of _that_ out,” she replied after nearly half an hour.

“The current state of the diagnostic arts continue their failure to account for the complexities of my existence,” he remarked casually. “I am a man forty-two years of age, possessed of rather unusual and specialized skill sets and interests, the utilization of which continues to be the defining factor of my every waking moment. My behaviors may be stereotyped, but _I_ am not.”

“Can you tell me why... why something the gander thinks _he's_ too good for, is still good enough for the goose?” she asked, slightly flustered.

He grunted in discomfort at her awkward metaphor before replying. “I still attend my _meetings_ with regularity despite their tiresome nature, and will soon again have a sponsor, once Alfredo and I have scouted a suitable candidate,” he explained. “These shrines of behavioral science are meant to solve a _problem_ , not a person,” he pointed out wryly.

“Addiction is not a replacement of my personality, merely a facet of it. Because I maintain discipline, and I refuse to let it become so. So has trauma affected your behavior, and possibly your personality as well, but your identity remains what you would have it be. So, choose to have a hand in what you will become, after the road forks and a path becomes clear.”

“...And miles to go before I sleep,” she said a little sarcastically.

“And miles to go before I sleep,” he intoned, nothing but sincerity in his quiet words.

They sat in companionable silence after that, and eventually Sherlock moved Clyde to the warmth of his chest, as the reptile had finished eating and showed signs of sleepiness. Joan did end up dipping her hand into the tortoise bowl and fished out a few crunchy bits to fill her hollow belly. She played another episode, and halfway through it remarked, “No matter how many times they say it, I just keep picturing a giant shoe.”

The only reply she received was a heavily hitched breath, and she turned to see that sleep had taken him like a freight train, as it commonly did at irregular intervals and sometimes inopportune moments. This, however, was not one of the latter. She moved the laptop, but left it open for its light as she got up and walked around the bed to gather up Clyde from Sherlock's chest and throw a few wilting veggies back into the bowl. She took both of them with her back downstairs, the bowl left on the first flat surface she saw with a mental apology to Ms. Hudson if she forgot about it. Clyde she returned to the comfort of his heated terrarium to finish snoozing off his meal in peace. She still washed her hands afterwards to maintain good habits.

She returned to her bedroom on silent bare feet, and finally pulled her hair from where it had plastered scratchily against her neck inside the nightdress. She didn't worry about the tangles, which she decided was another problem for tomorrow. It was still tonight, late as it was, and she watched her computer casting blueish light over her friend's face as he reclined primly with hands folded, legs crossed, and still managed to look almost relaxed in sleep.

She sighed, and turned the laptop away from her face, still alight as she crawled back under her comforter. She finally closed it and set it on the floor before laying down on her side to face her slumbering companion, waiting in the relative darkness as Sherlock's features slowly became clear to her again. She wondered how he managed not to snore, sleeping with his mouth slightly open and head tilted back the way he did.

She watched her hand creep out of the covers and toward his, before ever-so-carefully working under it, moving his arm to hold his warm hand in her cool one on top of the duvet. He sucked in a breath and let it out with a nearly inaudible moan, but this was a fairly common occurrence during Sherlock's REM cycles. Even unconscious, he seemed to be concentrating, with occasional frowns flittering across his brow as he slept as hard as he could. An inexpressible tenderness filled her, and a straggling tear leaked out of her sore eye to soak immediately into the pillowcase.

She knew he would wake before she did, but she made the most of the moment, squeezing his hand as she found herself drifting off, but not alone for once, to whatever dreams would come.

**Author's Note:**

> [[save me-aimee mann](https://youtu.be/4c48vs4lwgc)]


End file.
